


isn't it just so pretty to think

by Likedeadends



Series: 25 days of Johnmas [6]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Soulmates AU, String of Fate, also chenle and sungchan for like two seconds, side kunil if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 10:01:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27968753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Likedeadends/pseuds/Likedeadends
Summary: Johnny and Yuta are soulmates.
Relationships: Nakamoto Yuta/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Series: 25 days of Johnmas [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2038778
Comments: 4
Kudos: 62





	isn't it just so pretty to think

Johnny never liked his string. 

He used to cry in his mother’s bed when he was a child. Soft sobs, words he could barely get out of his throat. He didn’t like the way it tugged at him sometimes. He didn’t like when he tripped in class or when kids teased him by tying it around desk chairs. 

As he got older, he resented his parents for not getting rid of it when he was an infant. 

Most of the kids he knew didn’t have threads anymore. They were cruel to Johnny. They told him he was missing out on free will. 

He was forced to grow up alone. No one said yes when he asked them to the dance. His childhood was all lingering gazes and apologizes. No one wanted to be second choice. 

The nights Johnny put his teeth under his pillow he would wish that the tooth fairy wouldn’t come. He wished for a monster, something hungry enough to a piece of him, something cruel enough to free him. 

“Baby, we want you to have everything.” His mother would try to soothe him. Johnny would hiccup and whine and insist he felt sick every time he felt himself pulled somewhere he didn’t want to go. 

“Those kids would never admit it, but they’re missing something, angel.” She would whisper, holding him to her chest. “You’ll be complete one day, Johnny. When you find them, you’ll never feel this way again.” Then she would sing to him. 

Johnny cried until he slept. 

Something he would dream about a person. He couldn’t make out a face, definitely never heard a name, and he only knew the feeling in the second between asleep and awake. Something safe, something warm, something whole. 

\--

Johnny turned eighteen and told his mom he was leaving. She did not look surprised. 

“I’m going to find them.” He raised his left hand making the length of thread dance as he shook his wrist. 

“Be safe, my love.” His mother said. 

Johnny started walking. 

Sometimes there was no rhyme or reason to where your soulmate was, how fair your thread stretched. Johnny had been carefully disentangling knots for almost two decades, he was ready to start something new. 

There were easier ways to find your soulmate than following the thread on your own. You could use technology, attach a drone to the thread and have it go on the adventure for you. You just needed to wait. 

You could send signals down the thread, morse code to your partner that would tell them where you were. 

You could get DNA tested. 

Johnny didn’t do any of those things because his soulmate never tried them either. He always thought that if this was really his other half, then they would be looking for the adventure too. 

So, Johnny walked. He had a bag packed heavy on his shoulders and money to get him anywhere. 

“You’ll tell me how it goes, right?” Chenle asked when he caught Johnny at the edge of town. Chenle had his own thread he dragged around. As much as Johnny always hated his, he tried to be strong for Chenle, who was younger and part of a generation with even less threads, less empathy. 

“Of course I will, Lele.” Johnny linked his pinky with the younger and put on a brave face. 

Truthfully, he wasn’t sure.

He worried his soulmate didn’t want their thread either, and maybe they would resent Johnny for coming. He worried everything his mother told him was a lie and they would not actually complete each other. He worried he would follow the thread for years and never find someone at the end of it. 

But he couldn’t live with himself tripping over the thread without trying to get to the end of it. 

So he walked. 

Finding Yuta was not easy. 

Yuta lived in Japan. 

Johnny discovered this when he had to get on a boat to follow his thread. It was not a typical boat-- he had to pay a private captain to sail him through the water, just following where the thread led. Luckily, Johnny did not start this journey until the summer. 

The boat was big enough for two little rooms. The captain was nice. His name was Kun and he told Johnny he had helped over thirty soulmates find each other. 

“What about you?” Johnny asked one night, feeling bold. Kun didn’t have a thead of his own. 

“Oh,” Kun looked down at his left hand. There was a scar on his palm, deeper and angrier than the clean cut surgery scars Johnny saw most of his peers had. “I’m not sure if they… Cut it themselves or if they… passed away. I never met them.” 

Kun kept his eyes downturned and Johnny looked away to keep from seeing his eyes mist over. He looked at his own hand that night, gave his thread the smallest tug, something to say ‘I’m still here, I’m coming.’ 

The thread tugged back a couple minutes later and Johnny met someone in his dreams that night. 

Kun brought Johnny to a port in Osaka and wished him good luck. Johnny tried not to panic when he couldn’t read any of the signs. 

He didn’t need the signs. He had his thread. He knew where he was going. 

He didn’t even find Yuta. Yuta found him.

He stopped to order lunch. Back turned to the door, he was carefully navigating a discussion with the cashier when someone touched his shoulder. 

Til this day he will swear he was so absorbed in trying to remember his Japanese lessons that he didn’t notice the thread tugtugtugging. 

He won’t even forget the way it felt to turn and see Yuta standing there, hand raised, and pulling Johnny’s up with it. 

Time stood still and forever sprawled out in front of them. Yuta didn’t say anything, he laced their fingers together and Johnny was glad the tooth fairy was a benevolent spirit. They must have held up that cafe for a good fifteen minutes before the cashier finally lost her patience and ushered them off to a table.

They sat and then finally Johnny said, “I’m Johnny.” 

And Yuta said “I’m Yuta.” 

And every dream came rushing back to both of them. They spoke without worrying about languages, they understood each other intrinsically. 

The rest of the people in the cafe would not have understood a word of it. 

Johnny didn’t really know what he expected love to feel like. It was simultaneously the most all encompassing and least magnificent thing ever. It felt natural. Coming home and leaving forever all wrapped in one. 

Yuta felt the same way. 

They knew each other and had to learn each other. 

Johnny never did feel that awful way again. 

\-- 

“And you didn’t believe me when I told you you’d be happy!” Johnny points an accusatory finger at Chenle. 

The younger looks positively affronted and sinks into Sungchan’s side.

“The first time I met Yuta he was tripping you on purpose!” Chenle bites back. 

That was true. Yuta thought it was funny to tangle the thread around Johnny’s feet from time to time. And then he swore it was because Johnny always asked for kisses as repayment. 

“I’m trying to help him be more aware of his surroundings!” Yuta argues. He’s perched himself in Johnny’s lap and refuses to stop smiling. 

“And for that we thank you,” Kun pipes up, the one who is most often victim of Johnny’s inability to walk in a straight line. 

“Hey! You’re supposed to be on my side.” Johnny whines. He’s the one that helped Kun find Taeil. 

“Actually, he’s supposed to be on my side.” Taeil presses his laugh into the side of Kun’s neck. “And I, for one, find the noise you make when you fall over very funny.” 

The whole group laughs then breaks off into other conversations. Yuta gently knocks his forehead against Johnny’s. 

“You know I love you, right?” He asks, eyes sparkling. 

“Of course I do.” Johnny cranes his neck and rubs their noses together. “You’re my soulmate. You have to.” 

“I’d love you regardless of that.” 

“Promise?” 

“Promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> day eight of johnmas. honestly i wish i wasn't writing these every day simply for the fact that this specific iteration of johnyu i would like to give about forty thousand more words. they are very cute. yuta teases johnny the way the other kids used to because he's trying to replace the bad memories with good ones. 
> 
> you can decide for yourself if kunil were destined or johnny just played matchmaker. 
> 
> thank you for reading!! also some of my johnmas days only go up on twitter bc i am a goblin person. if you would like to see them my twt is @suhjpeg


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